The Tories have announced their plans for inclusion in their election manifesto to make it more difficult for unions to win a ballot to take strike action. They are saying that the turnout should be at least 50% for the vote to count. That may sound sensible initially - leaving aside the fact that many MPs, almost all councillors and every MEP and Police and Crime Commissioner was elected on a turnout of under 50%. However, it is not only a ridiculous idea, it is totally undemocratic.

 

First, assume there are 10,000 eligible voters. If they vote by 4,999 to 4,998 in favour of a strike that will be enough as the turnout is almost 100%. However, if they vote 4,999 to nil in favour of a strike, that doesn't count as the turnout is below 50%. In other words, there is a positive incentive for people opposed to strike action NOT to vote. A system which encourages one side not to vote is not democratic.

 

Second, it makes an assumption about the opinion of people who choose not to vote. No doubt - particularly given the above - some of them will be opposed to strike action. Others may be undecided but this proposal just assumes they are opposed to action.

 

The Tories are acting as if we have returned to the 1970s when strikes were undoubtedly a major problem. The reality is that strikes are now very rare. They know they cannot make all strike action illegal - at least as long as we are signatories to the European Convention On Human Rights - so they are effectively trying to make it illegal by stealth.

as long as they make the same law for local council elections and government elections I might support it. No, I'm lying, they are tosspots trying to stop the democratic right to withdraw one's labour on no pay. They already withdrew the right of council workers to have a contract that actually meant anything, say, in terms of agreeing to pay a specific wage (unless you're a greedy failed banker, of course, or greedy failed politician, or greedy head of a failed company, for some reason those contracts are binding) - so if your employer is a lying toad who goes back on their word, then, apparently, as long as you are low paid it's all right.

 

Agree with every comment above. Tories are obviously desperately attempting to head off the perceived right-wing UKIP nut-job vote by demonising a few handy "lefties". Trouble is, I know plenty of people who have voted UKIP, and intend to vote UKIP, not because they are some brainless right-wing moron, they are doing it because they have utterly lost trust in the 3 main parties, know exactly what they are doing is dangerous, but will do it anyway because it's the only way they can underline how disgusted they are with all 3 main parties and how we came to be in the mess that we, the not-rich, are in.

Trouble is, I know plenty of people who have voted UKIP, and intend to vote UKIP, not because they are some brainless right-wing moron, they are doing it because they have utterly lost trust in the 3 main parties, know exactly what they are doing is dangerous, but will do it anyway because it's the only way they can underline how disgusted they are with all 3 main parties and how we came to be in the mess that we, the not-rich, are in.

 

Absolutely spot on. It's also what the left need to understand sooner rather than later.

Edited July 18, 201411 yr by GRIFF

This is absolutely abhorrent and completely disgraceful...so entirely expected behaviour by the Tories.

WHY did Labour choose Ed Miliband.

 

Now we'll probably have to endure five more years of these c**ts either way.

Both Labour and Lib Dems need to point out how absurd this proposal is using something similar to my example in the first post. Most people still support the right to strike even if they may oppose some specific strikes. Opposition to this policy might even help to increase support for the Human Rights Act.

WHY did Labour choose Ed Miliband.

 

Now we'll probably have to endure five more years of these c**ts either way.

Because Alan Johnson didn't stand.

Both Labour and Lib Dems need to point out how absurd this proposal is using something similar to my example in the first post. Most people still support the right to strike even if they may oppose some specific strikes. Opposition to this policy might even help to increase support for the Human Rights Act.

 

I give it 3 months before Labour start saying they back the main parts of these proposals, and only picking out one small irrelevant detail of them to oppose to try and make themselves feel like they still have grounds to attack the "evil Tories".

I very, very much doubt it. We're not exactly rolling in it as it is: backing the principle of this is something that would very rightly be a red line for union funding, if not union backing full stop.

 

It isn't an issue that's going to decide anyone's votes, other than those who were almost certainly voting Tory already - it's not at all comparable to economic policy where there very much is a significant chunk of the electorate who will only vote Labour when it trusts them economically. There really isn't a constituency amongst the electorate that would happily vote Labour but won't so long as unions have the right to strike.

WHY did Labour choose Ed Miliband.

 

Because the main alternative had all of Ed Miliband's flaws, and none of his (very few) strengths.

 

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01217/banana_1217414c.jpg

Edited July 18, 201411 yr by Danny

50% is a bit high, but I agree that there should be a threshold.

50% is a bit high, but I agree that there should be a threshold.

Why? If a union doesn't want to strike, it is free to vote to not do so. It's a right that has been invoked many times in the past. Not that you hear about it with the shrill rhetoric acting as if unions have the whip hand over the British economy and we're just a strike away from going back to the 70s.

I very, very much doubt it. We're not exactly rolling in it as it is: backing the principle of this is something that would very rightly be a red line for union funding, if not union backing full stop.

 

That's why I hope it happens. It will speed up the tipping point where either the trade unions finally get the hint and set up a new proper left-wing party, or the majority of Labour members will finally have enough and drive out this minority at the top of the party and allow them to join up with Clegg's wing of the Lib Dems (they can set up the Progress Party and scale the dizzy heights of of 5% in the polls). Anything to get this slow-motion car crash out of the way so that, either way, there's finally a left-wing party to vote for which doesn't just think their role is to suck up to "the markets".

Edited July 18, 201411 yr by Danny

*restrains self from quoting Mark Twain*

 

I'm not sure who would be happier in that scenario: the remnants of the SWP, who would do what they always do and try to co-opt it, or the Tories who would be the immediate beneficiaries of that split vote. I'm not up for repeating the 80s personally.

 

The problem with political coalitions based on notions of ideological purity is that at some point, different people's purities start colliding - and given I'm presuming you'd have Andy Burnham at the vanguard of this new 'real' left-wing party, don't count on it that that purity would last long.

 

In any case I should probably ask your view: what exactly was stopping Kinnock from becoming Prime Minister when all those riotously popular left-wing policies in polling didn't get elected at the ballot box? If your answer's the SDP, you've just advocated the mirror image of it. If your answer isn't the SDP, I'm genuinely interested to hear it.

*restrains self from quoting Mark Twain*

 

I'm not sure who would be happier in that scenario: the remnants of the SWP, who would do what they always do and try to co-opt it, or the Tories who would be the immediate beneficiaries of that split vote. I'm not up for repeating the 80s personally.

 

The problem with political coalitions based on notions of ideological purity is that at some point, different people's purities start colliding - and given I'm presuming you'd have Andy Burnham at the vanguard of this new 'real' left-wing party, don't count on it that that purity would last long.

 

In any case I should probably ask your view: what exactly was stopping Kinnock from becoming Prime Minister when all those riotously popular left-wing policies in polling didn't get elected at the ballot box? If your answer's the SDP, you've just advocated the mirror image of it. If your answer isn't the SDP, I'm genuinely interested to hear it.

 

There would be no split vote, because nobody wants the type of policies they want. I really don't think you get how few people want economic conservative policies/socially liberal ones. We're literally talking about a handful of people who are wealthy and want to protect their statuses, but who still want to pontificate about how they're morally superior to the Conservatives at the same time. Outside of Islington and a few other Guardianista hotspots, they'd be getting slaughtered everywhere, and would be more than recouped by people who stopped listening to politics ages ago being relieved that some politicians were finally speaking English, rather than spouting gobbledygook about zero-based reviews and "people-powered services".

 

And comparisons with the 1980s don't work, because it's just fact that the SDP back then were well to the left of the current Labour party, nevermind this hypothetical party of Blairite thinktankists' wet dreams. I'd be perfectly happy with a party as "ideologically pure" as the dangerous Marxists that were the SDP btw.

Edited July 18, 201411 yr by Danny

You're assuming that politics is entirely based on policy though there. The cultural link with the Labour Party would still be there for a lot of people. Do you really think that if all the unions backed a new party tomorrow literally everyone outside of Islington would jump ship immediately? Both parties would be getting slaughtered everywhere - it would be a brutal political civil war given the new party would be trying to take Labour's base away from it entirely, whilst trying to add on new votes. It would take a lot away, but it's pure delusion to think all would jump over neatly with only 'Progress technocrats' left behind.*

 

Comparisons with the 1980s work entirely, because it's about the principle of a political party's base being split. Both the SDP being formed today with the policies it had then AND a union-backed Left Unity would still split the Labour Party hugely today, regardless of which one it was - it's not about the ideology, it's about the fact that one new group with ideological appeal to a large swathe of current voters in Labour would now exist, regardless of which wing it was. There has never, ever, ever, ever been a case of one party attempting to supplant another as the main receptacle of a political wing's votes without the opposition wing utterly dominating for a period (just look at Canada in the 90s on the right and today on the left, the UK in the 20s, the UK in the 80s).

 

 

*and if I wanted to be pernickety, economic centrism coupled with social liberalism is pretty much the dominant ideology of Millennials whenever polled, so...in any case, that finding coupled with the fact that turnout is so low amongst young voters kind of shows anyway that party identification never simply goes down to just policy positioning.

*and if I wanted to be pernickety, economic centrism coupled with social liberalism is pretty much the dominant ideology of Millennials whenever polled, so...in any case, that finding coupled with the fact that turnout is so low amongst young voters kind of shows anyway that party identification never simply goes down to just policy positioning.

 

:lol: That's Tory spin, based entirely on young people saying they didn't support welfare benefits (which is disappointing, but not exactly surprising when most of them will have literally heard no arguments in favour of it in their memories since the left-wing hasn't had the guts to argue it in years). The exact same polling found young people felt MORE strongly than older generations that the NHS needed protecting, that the cuts should be stopped, and that governments had a duty to stop employers being exploitative.

Hence why I said economically centrist, rather than economically right-wing.

Ok, then by that definition I want "economically centrist" policies, not the economically right-wing policies currently promoted by Labour.

I didn't notice you had 'that the cuts should be stopped' in there too. 18-24s were the only generation that had net approval for deficit reduction being prioritised over growth. I'm one of that age group that disagrees with the statement (and Labour disagrees with them too on that), but let's not pretend that it's just opinion on the welfare state where the current generation is more economically liberal than its predecessors.

 

But yeah, they agree that governments have a duty to stop employer exploitation and that the NHS needs protecting. So does Labour. Far moreso than the Tories in that they'd actually do something about it. Just because it isn't the simplistic 'ban all zero hours contracts, legislate for a universal living wage immediately' solution (although we do have the 'just reverse it' policy for protecting the NHS) doesn't mean we have economically right wing policies.